Hitherto, organic dyes such as cyanine dyes have been well-known to be used in a recording layer for optical recording media. Widely used optical recording media having such an organic-dye recording layer are kept in cartridges equipped with a shutter and the recording layer is exposed to light only through an opening of the shutter upon recording and reproducing, ensuring prevention of deterioration by light and attaining easy handling and storage.
Efforts have been directed toward developing an optical recording medium adapted to the standards of a compact disk (CD) player in civil use so that it can be mounted on the CD player as it is. However, the medium adapted to the standards of the CD player is not kept in shape in the cartridge, and therefore the recording layer of the medium suffers marked deterioration by an ordinary light when the recording layer is composed of, for example, a cyanine dye which exhibits high absorption in the visible light region other than the wavelength of light for recording and reproducing (generally 780 nm), as is apparent from FIG. 3 showing its light absorption property (ordinate: transmittance (%), abscissa: wavelength (nm).